“You are not the first to take this journey. Nor will you be the last.”
The Explorer reluctantly let his eyes rise from the map, across the darkened room, to the man at the other side of the table. The man who had just told him that his labors, hopes, and dreams for most of his life had already been won by others. The man who was telling him that his life was a lie.
“Then what is all this pomp? This revelry?”
The Explorer cast his hands back towards the doors to the outside world, and the busy city below.
“You are the people's hero. You will tell them of a place that's been kept secret from them. You are merely to open the gate.”
“Who has known of these secrets? Who told them to you and to the Queen?”
The Minister gave the Explorer a moment to find calm.
“Nobles of a different sort. They came to my Queen on your behalf.”
“What do they want of me?” The Explorer couldn't stop looking at the map.
“There are people there. Civilizations undreamt of in our world.”
The Minister pointed to the southern cities surrounding the mountains made by men. “These places have vast stores of knowledge, and it is all they ask of us. The gold and wealth you will attain as Viceroy means nothing to them.”
The Explorer let his fingers again caress the map, and his eyes looked questioningly at the locked ornate box on the Minister's side of the table. How many more secrets could be hidden within?
The crash from beyond the closed doors of the Queen's bed chambers startled the Explorer. Broken glass and a thud — then two more thuds. The Explorer saw palace guards move for the first time that day, as they gripped their pole arms and turned their heads towards the doors which separated this room from the next.
The Minister turned his craned neck towards the noise, and then wrapped his fingers tightly around the box. The guards stepped quickly from their posts on either side of the door and braced themselves to face it.
The doors to the royal chambers of the Queen flew open.
The world within was fully dark, yet there were flashes in the shroud of chaos. The light from the room the Minister and the Explorer stood in tried to spill clarity on the events beyond. Attendants ran about the bed, and one of the guards looked back to the Minister as if begging to be told what to do.
A chambermaid appeared in the light of the doorway. The look of terror on the young girl's face is the only way the Explorer would ever remember her. She had those eyes, those eyes which haunted the Explorer's dreams of the sea.
“She can no longer be contained.” The chambermaid's words were cold and laced with fright; her body trembled with shock. A dark form stayed in shadow behind the horrified girl — the shadow's form definitely feminine, yet in no way regal. The thing of shadow was wild.
The Explorer caught flashes, a dark eye, the gold glint of a disheveled crown, dark and feral hair.
Pale fingers grabbing the chambermaid's leg as the girl screamed for mercy — as if she were being gutted.
The Explorer locked onto the girl's eyes as she was pulled off her feet and she crashed face first onto the floor. The palace guards had their blades pointed towards the darkness, but took no steps to stop the girl from being dragged back into the room as the dark shadow of a woman tugged at her leg. The chambermaid's hands grabbed helplessly for anything, yet there was nothing.
The tears flowed as she was pulled mercilessly back into the darkened chamber of the Queen.
The dark woman of the room locked eyes with the Explorer, who thanked God as he recited the Prayer of the Lord to himself at the spectacle.
Then, he heard the shadow speak. “There is my hero.”
Doors flew open on either side of the room as more guards flooded in from anti-chambers. The girl's eyes slipped into the sea of darkness and there was one final scream.
The Explorer looked maddeningly into the calm eyes of the Minister, who was now beside him. The man handed the Explorer the map, once again neatly rolled, and the small wooden box.
“Go now.” The Minister was quiet and stern in his words. “To the new world.”
Guards had hold of the doors and were pushing them closed. The blades of swords and pole-arms were being thrust into the bed chamber to try and keep back whatever evil had laid claim to it.
The light hit just right, and the Explorer saw fully for an instant what was within. Her face was still beautiful, but she wore a menacing and hungered glare. Skin so pale, it shown in the candlelight like the snows of the northlands. Her red lips were stained in blood, and the fangs in her mouth could not be captured fully by them, even if a vice were to press at her jaw to close it tight.
The Queen slashed with her fingernails at the flesh she had laid claim to and the Explorer watched the blood spray as she laughed. “Get my goblet!”
The Explorer's eyes were blinded from the sunlight through most of the garden. This was a thankful blessing, as he ran towards an ocean which did not nearly frighten him as much as it had before.
II.
The Explorer stared into the belly of his ship as the black chest was lowered on ropes into the hold. Whatever was within was heavy; it had taken all day to scavenge the men to rig the ropes and grunt out the song of their labor. Thankfully, it was not heavy enough to sink the ship as the men had warned, and as the Explorer walked the deck and looked down the sides of the vessel, he could not tell any discernible drop.
Thousands were along the banks to wish the voyage well. They sailed far from land before the sounds of the well-wishers’ parties and merriment faded from the ears of the Explorer and his crew.
The Explorer did his best to drown it all away. He focused on the lazy call of the sea birds overhead and the waves below.
When night came, the Explorer found himself at the bow, his instruments laid out before him on the deck as he began to check the stars. He had waited later than he normally would, and only allowed the first mate to stand with him as he bent down to unclasp the locks on the wooden box given him by the Minister.
The first mate, grizzled yet normally jovially grizzled, crossed his arms. The Explorer could feel the old sailor's eyes creeping down over his shoulder like a pirate's parrot. The Explorer's confidant had not liked the secretiveness of the chest which was lowered into the hold at the last minute, and liked even less the strange device which was contained in the wooden box the Explorer lifted the lid on.
“Captain, don't let the men see. They're superstitious bastards of dog mothers, all of ‘em.”
The Explorer rose with the small golden device, a cube of cogs and spinning ornate hands, pointing out star patterns and giving complex testament to direction.
“It's not witchcraft, there's none of that here. It's science.”
The old sailor backed from the whirring shiny machine as the Explorer studied it. “Devil's clockworks is what it is, Captain.”
The Explorer was fascinated by the thing, and didn't look to his friend when he scolded, “Don't curse us. We're barely out of port.”
“Curses and omens ain't to be ignored, Captain.”
The Explorer considered this, but considered too the alternative as he remarked to his superstitious friend, “If you only knew what we were leaving behind, you'd be up all night blowing at the sails yourself to push us away from it faster.”
When the Explorer had double-checked all of his findings, he placed the cube back into its box and locked it away. Only then did his old sailor first mate begin to feel at ease.
The moment didn't last long, though, as both men turned at the same time to stare down the steps into the ship's hold. They could just see the outline of the black chest.
“What's to be happy about out there at ocean's end? You're gonna have me falling off the edge of the world and right into Hell.”
The Explorer began the walk down the steps towards the chest. “Had you seen what I've seen, my friend, you wouldn't be so scared of the imagined monsters there.”
The first mate reluctantly took to the steps and both men stopped at the chest. It was old, and the wood which composed it was black, yet it didn't seem blackened with age. It was simple in its construction and refinements, but as strong and formidable as a king's vault. The old first mate wouldn't touch it.
The Explorer took the key from around his neck, and as he went for the lock, only then did he notice that the same five glyphs from the Minister's table were burned into the wood.
“Ain't it normal to raise the royal banner before the ship sets sail?” The old sailor reluctantly stood beside the Explorer.
“Royal decree, we follow their orders for now. It's just a banner to fly. Why are you so frightened?” The Explorer smiled at his sea-dog friend.
“You call me scared now? I ain't scared of no pansy royal's flag.”
The Explorer laughed as his friend snatched the key out of his hands.
The first mate gave the Explorer a snarl as he pressed the key into the lock and twisted it. “Guess I'll be doing the honors.”
It took both men to push open the heavy lid, and they strained against the rusted hinges. The lid fell back and the box now lay open. The Explorer took the lead, leaning in and staring down at the flag which was to be the symbol of his voyage to an already discovered new world.
The dark flag was folded neatly; it held an ancient and dirty countenance. Across the square which was visible to their eyes were the markings in gold of a tentacle — like that of a squid.
“There,” remarked the Explorer, “Your monster, sir.”
The first mate was quiet as he stared, and when both men's eyes met, they shared a laugh for the first time in many nights of fevered preparation for the voyage.
“Dirty squiddy,” sang the first mate in his rough voice. “A fine way to be representin’ ourselves to the savages we're sure to find in new ports.”
The Explorer took the flag from the chest and they turned towards the steps.
“You ain't thinkin’ you're gonna send the boy up to raise this flag over the mast at night, are ye’?” The first mate again crossed his arms, and the Explorer knew he was about to hear a sermon on how it was bad luck and would curse them all.
“Actually,” laughed the Explorer as he turned from the steps back to his friend, “I was thinking I was going to send you up…”
The tendril which had risen from the chest was so green it was almost black. It was coated in a mixture of glistening oil and blood. The Explorer had never seen suckers that large on any beast of the seas.
“Blooms as big as the faces of smiling children…”
The Explorer's words were a whisper and the color had surely left his face, because he watched it leave the face of his friend as he turned to see what it was the Explorer was backing away from.
The tentacle wrapped around the first mate as would a starved snake and lifted the man effortlessly into the air. The first mate tried to pull his cutlass, but his arms were locked to his body tight as the unholy thing squeezed the wind from his lungs. The Explorer's old friend screamed until the final wrap by the tentacle smothered his mouth and face.
Then, when his body was hoisted to the roof of the hold and back over the box, the tentacle began to retreat with its prize. The Explorer pulled his pistol as the men came rushing from their bunks across the hold, and stared in terror at what unexplainable witchcraft was being played out before them. Grown men fell to their knees and prayed to new gods and old.
The bones of the first mate's body began to snap as the fat tentacle began to stuff itself and the man back into the chest.
Men wept as the bones broke and the whole mess of the chaotic frenzy rested for a final moment, coiled and sitting on the entrance to the box.
The tentacle found its way to fit past the confines of the lid, yet not all of the sailor's body did. There was a loud pop; sailors who would give up the sea forever to hide in the darkened corners of portside taverns would say it was louder than a cannon blast.
Blood sprayed over every God-fearing man.
When it had slipped fully into the box, the lid swung up and closed, and the lock clicked shut on its own.
The Explorer had fallen back on the steps which led to the deck and the cold stars above. The flag he gripped in his hands was soaked in blood.
“…thus began the expedition across unknown waters, and once ships had sailed beyond the watchful eyes of those on the shore wishing them Godspeed, the order was given to unlock the chest given by the aristocracy. The Explorer would be responsible for taking forth the dark flag of the Satanic Five and to raise it over the sea, so that its gaze from atop the high mast would be the first eye to stare at its new world.”
~27~
I WAS OLD COUNTRY WHEN OLD COUNTRY WASN'T COOL
LISSANDRA STOPPED ABRUPTLY ON THEIR JOURNEY into the canyon and towards the fires when Moon raised her arm — Lissandra bumped right into her and came to a stop. Looking up, Lissandra saw that the forward triangle pattern of soldiers had stopped as well. The camp between the two cliffs where the torchlights and barrel fires burned was still several hundred yards in their future, but Lissandra was beginning to make out the small city composed of tents, metal shipping containers, and what looked to be derelict aircraft.
Moon lowered her arm as she broke from Lissandra and made her way to the forward point of her soldiers. The gypsy could plainly hear Moon's voice, filled with disdain: “You idiot.”
Moon grabbed the forward-most soldier by his shoulders and pulled him back from where he stood. She muttered a curse and pointed to the ground with one hand, and — forcefully closing her hand on the back of his head — pointed his gaze to his boots for him.
Lissandra followed Moon to stand over her shoulder and see what all the fuss was about. Soldiers began to fan out, but would only step forward so far. Lissandra saw the line that was drawn in the black rock sand, which extended fully, as far as Lissandra could tell in the darkness of the cavern, from one side of the canyon to the other. Just on the other side of the line was an ancient and yellowed horn — long ago retrieved from the head of some bovine creature and refashioned for the use of blowing into.
Moon removed her hand from the back of the soldier's neck, then struck him where she had been grasping with an open palmed blow. Moon was annoyed, and it didn't take her opening her arms in a sweeping motion like a rabid bat to make the rest of the soldiers fan away from her even wider.
Lissandra studied the line, while Moon bent at her knees to lower her body to look more closely at it. “I'm assuming we weren't to have crossed?”
Moon cut her eyes up to Lissandra and nodded. “Just makes what we're trying to accomplish down here all the more difficult now.” Moon reached over the line, took the horn in her hand, and rose up with it.
Moon put the horn to her lips and blew; a low moan crept from the instrument and rolled through the cavern. Moon would blow into it three times before bending down once more and placing it where she had gotten it, on the other side of the line.
Lissandra had been focused on the encampment while Moon played her song. If anything inhabited this place, they weren't making themselves known to their uninvited party of guests. “I'm assuming they'll come now.”
“Oh, how could they not?”
“It seems silly, really. We spent fifteen minutes coming down that lift on the side of the cliff. Surely they know we're here.”
“These are demons, Lissandra. They adhere to the ways of the old country. Everything with them is all about the ritual involved.”
“I don't understand why we didn't bring the entire group down here. If what you keep hinting at is true, this could turn horribly ugly.”
“The rest of the group, the mostly expendable portion, is working on tracking what is going to lead us out of here and back up to Texas when we're done.”
Lissandra looked back and could barely see the glow from what seemed such a tiny window, from where they'd traveled from. “What is going to lead us out of h
ere?”
“It doesn't have a name, we call it The Tendril.”
“You're relying on an octopus to get us back to the real world?”
“It's a creature with some of the same properties which were used in the construction of Level 5. We think it's more squid than octopus, but it's not really either thing. It's just a tentacle.”
“Things can't just be a tentacle.”
“Nobody has ever seen its head. Until further notice, it's just a tentacle.”
Lissandra looked back to the quiet village. “You plan to reason with this creature?”
“Absolutely not, there's no reasoning with it. I'm using half these jarheads as bait, and then we're going to track its movements to find the passage back to the main lift.”
The gypsy considered the other soldiers waiting cautiously at the line. “That has to be great for morale.”
“It's not morale that keeps these knuckleheads in line. They get to go fantastic places they would otherwise never get to go and see fantastic things they would never get the chance to see. They also get to firebomb many of those places and kill all those fantastic things.”
“Tell me there's a recruitment video I get to watch at some point.”
Moon looked to Lissandra and raised her finger to her own lips. Lissandra looked from Moon and back to the camp.
There was something odd about the way they walked. Shadow clung with all its might to their forms. Their clothing fluttered about their bodies, they were dressed in long robes and hoods — flowing cloaks danced as they took steps in their drab colors: browns, greens, grays. She counted fifty-one of them, a mixture of men and women.
It wasn't until they had gotten much closer to the line in the sand that Lissandra realized why their walking looked so strange to her — they were walking backwards. They weren't robed at all; the cloaks and hoods at their backs were facing Lissandra and the rest of her party.
At perhaps fifty paces, much of the group stopped and only three approached. At center was a male of impressive height, another male to his right and a female to the left. The one in the center was slightly forward of the other two.
Billy Purgatory and the Curse of the Satanic Five Page 26